Tag Archives: Yassamine Mather

Preparations for the Communist University, our annual school, are well advanced and the 2013 timetable features some outstanding speakers on key issues. The CPGB website will be regularly updated with tweaks to the timetable and profiles of our speakers, but here are a few who have confirmed so far and the subjects they will be addressing:

* Hillel Ticktin is one of the leading Marxist political economists in the world. Originally from South Africa, he left the country to avoid arrest for political activism. After some time working for his PhD in the Soviet Union – where he again attracted the disapproval of the authorities – he began teaching at the University of Glasgow in 1965, and in 1973 he co-founded Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, an independent, scholarly Marxist journal. Comrade Ticktin has been a regular atCommunist University over years and a frequent contributor to our paper. He will be presenting three sessions for us in August – ‘Capitalist crises and the causes’ (Wednesday, August 14), ‘Capitalism: terminal crisis or long term decline?’ (Thursday, August 15) and ‘Socialism or barbarism’ (Saturday, August 17).

* The left’s response to the global crisis of capitalism has been essentially Keynesian. So the title of our morning session on Friday, August 16 – ‘Does Keynesianism offer an alternative to austerity?’ – is apposite for all those who regard themselves as Marxists, or revolutionaries of some stripe. It is presented by the CPGB’s Mike Macnair, a member of the party’s leadership and a frequent contributor to the Weekly Worker. Mike has written and spoken on this subject in the past and it is clearly one that we need to keep returning to given the left’s stubborn insistence that this non-Marxist (actually anti-Marxist) politics is a supportable ‘alternative’ to capitalist austerity.

* OnTuesday, August 13 Mike Gonzalez will be discussing with Nick Rogers the question, ‘After Chavez: where next for the Bolivarian revolution?’ Mike has written widely on Latin America from the state capitalist perspective of the International Socialist tradition of Tony Cliff. (See his Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution). He is a historian, a prolific author and literary critic. For a time, he also was the professor of Latin American Studies in the Hispanics department of the University of Glasgow. He was videoed speaking on ‘The politics of water’ at a Socialist Workers Party (Ireland) event in November of last year.

*Yassamine Mather is an Iranian socialist in exile in Britain. Her political activities on the Iranian left started in 1980s Tehran and later in Kurdistan. In exile, she has been on the editorial board of the monthly journal Jahan and a member of the coordinating committee of Workers Left Unity Iran. She is also a member of the Centre for Socialist Theory and Movements (Glasgow University) and the deputy editor of the journalCritique. Since 2007 she has been active in Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI).She will be speaking in a debate on feminism(s) with Camilla Power.

*Camilla Power is a senior lecturer in evolutionary anthropology at the University of East London, with a particular interest in female coalitionary strategies, ritual and early human kinship. She uses modern Darwinian selfish-gene sexual selection theory to understand the origins of symbolic culture. She is a leading member of the Radical Anthropology Group and has spoken frequently at Communist University. She will be speaking in a debate on feminism(s) with Yassamine Mather.

*

Comrades attending Communist University for the first time often remark that its culture is very different to other left schools. For example, writing in the Weekly Worker Paul Demarty regrets the “cosy diplomatic speechifying” that generally characterises the annual Marxism school staged by the Socialist Workers Party. This flows from a tacit “diplomatic arrangement” between the event organisers and the ‘star’ non-SWP speakers – the “horse trading” consists of “the SWP granting the speaker a large and enthusiastic audience in central London. In return, the speaker offers the SWP an implicitendorsement of the image it wishes to project: a non-sectarian, unifying force on the radical left, offering up its resources to ‘build the movement’.”

Our school actually makes an effort to explore real differences between comrades, to give critical minorities the time and space to make their arguments and to challenge comrades’ pre-conceptions. We are genuinely out to educate, in other words – both ourselves and others. In the lead up to last year’s CU, we made this video with the CPGB’s national organiser, Mark Fischer, to give comrades a feel for the event.

Our annual school – Communist University – takes place in a world in flux. The near hysterical euphoria that surrounded the election of Barack Obama in 2008 has evaporated, as US foreign policy is characterised by aggressive continuity – for all the flatulent talk of “change”. Change has come to the Arab world – from below. Millions have risen in defiance of batons and bullets in a revolutionary fight for democracy and freedom.

In the UK, we have see the first stirrings of revolt from the trade union movement against austerity and cuts, with the gargantuan March 26 demo and the coordinated strike action on June 30. The movement across the rest of Europe is further advanced. We have seen huge mobilisations in Ireland, Greece and Spain. The battle lines are drawn.

Given its explanatory power and practical programme, Marxism has huge potential in this period – a potential that is irresponsibly squandered by the sectarian in-fighting and opportunism of the Marxist groups. Communist University points a way out of this mess. Over eight days of intense and open discussion, comrades from a variety of left political backgrounds teach and learn from each other. Differences between comrades are debated in a fiercely partisan way – but without the fear of ‘excommunication’ characteristic of the confessional sects that inhabit much of the rest of the left. The aim is clarity to show the relevance of contemporary Marxism to the huge battles the workers’ movement is facing.

Come and join us this year and make your contribution to the job of politically tooling up our side. Speakers include: Moshé Machover (Israeli socialist) Mohammed Reza Shalgouni (Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran) Owen Jones (author of Chavs: the demonisation of the working class) Camilla Power and Chris Knight (Radical Anthropology Group) Hillel Ticktin (Editor of Critique) Yassamine Mather (chair, Hands Off the People of Iran) Jack Conrad and Mike Macnair (CPGB) Anne Mc Shane (Weekly Worker Ireland specialist)

Saturday August 13 – Saturday August 20
Raymont Hall, 63 Wickham Road, New Cross, London SE4
20-minute walk from New Cross tube station (East London line), 5 minutes from Brockley railway station – there are trains leaving London Bridge Station every 10-15 minutes.

A roundtable discussion organised by Hands Off the People of Iran featuring Mohamad Reza Shalgouni (of the Iranian socialist group Rahe Kargar), Moshe Machover (anti-Zionist Israeli socialist), Mike Macnair (Communist Party of Great Britain), and Yassamine Mather (Hands Off the People of Iran).

If anyone was in any doubt about the continuation of the political crisis in Iran, demonstrations on Friday September 18 in Tehran, Tabriz, Mashad, Shiraz, Isfahan and elsewhere put an end to that.

Tens of thousands of Iranians, ignoring repeated warnings by the security forces, used the state-sponsored demonstrations for ‘Qods day’ (Jerusalem day) on the last Friday of Ramadan to voice their opposition to the government and the clerical regime’s supreme leader. Undeterred by two months of executions, arrests and show trials, the opposition used the opportunity to fill the streets and voice their protests.

Earlier, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had once again done harm to the Palestinian cause by repeating his abhorrent holocaust-denial claims: “The holocaust was a false pretext for the establishment of Israel in 1948. It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim … Why shouldn’t we be allowed to research this? … All western governments are victims of a Zionist conspiracy that dictates their foreign policy.” Never mind capitalism or imperialism – it is all to do with conspiracies. Many will remember anti-Semites making similar remarks in the 20th century.

But it is not just this anti-Semitic message that helps the Zionists. A section of Iranian youth who have heard nothing but empty rhetoric about Palestine, all mouthed by a reactionary dictatorship, are not as supportive of the Palestinian cause as older generations. In a country where the majority of the population live in poverty, those who are foolish enough to believe the Shia state’s exaggerated claims relating to financial support for Hezbollah or Hamas blame such largesse in ‘foreign aid’ for their own destitution.

However, last Friday was mainly about opposition to Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and Ahmadinejad. The demonstrators were shouting for the Iranian government to go, with slogans such as: “Death to the dictator. We will revenge our dead. Death to Khamenei. Coup d’etat government, resign, resign! Dictator, dictator, have shame; the Iranian people are ready to revolt – this is our last warning.” A number of slogans were addressed to the bassij (Islamic militia) – some calling on them to stop siding with the oppressors and join the people, others warning them of the consequences of killing protesters.

A minority were shouting a reactionary, nationalist slogan: “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon. My life for my country.” This was a reference to the regime’s support for Palestinians in Gaza and Shias in Lebanon, and it was promoted mainly by rightwing forces. This slogan had been rejected out of hand the week before the demonstration by sections of the left.

A statement by the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar), distributed last week, reminded Iranians of their shared destiny with the oppressed in Palestine and Lebanon. Saying that Palestine should not be equated with Hamas. Rahe Kargar pointed to the unprecedented solidarity shown by people throughout the world for the protest movement in Iran. The leaflet called on demonstrators to reciprocate this internationalism and proposed the slogan, “Wake up – Iran has become Palestine”.

This was a timely reminder for sections of the Iranian left, many of whom are increasingly tailing bourgeois liberal politics rather than coming up with a leftwing alternative. The Iranian working class cannot struggle for power in one country; if we are serious about ditching the Stalinist idiocy of socialism in one country, the tasks of the Iranian working class cannot be limited to the borders of Iran. More importantly, whether Iranian rightwing nationalists like it or not, it is the US and western powers who in recent months have associated the two issues of Iran and Palestine more than ever before.

Obama

In late August news from the Middle East was dominated by claims that Barack Obama had managed to convince Israel to freeze its construction of new West Bank settlements in exchange for the US adopting more stringent policies regarding the Iranian nuclear plan. Soon afterwards, especially following the visit of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Europe, leaders in London, Paris and Berlin were singing from the same song sheet. We were ‘reliably’ informed that US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell was preparing to announce the resumption of peace talks by the end of September. The American promise to take a firmer line against the Iranian nuclear plan was supposed to convince Jerusalem it needed to get on board the initiative. The US, Britain and France plan to pressure the UN security council to expand sanctions against the Islamic Republic, including sanctions on its gas and petrol industries – a move that is claimed will destroy Iran’s already collapsing economy.

Less than a week after these pronouncements it became clear that Israel had officially approved the construction of more than 500 new homes in the occupied West Bank. This is in addition to Netanyahu’s refusal to apply any freeze at all to the colonisation of Greater Jerusalem, or to stop construction projects that have already been started. The new homes will be built in six settlements – all of which are included in the blocs Israel wants to retain under any peace agreement, according to Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper.

On the other hand, despite news of direct talks to be held in early October, threats of military action against Iran are increasing. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal in early September warned Obama that the United States must quickly put a stop to the Iranian nuclear programme, otherwise Israel will bomb the facilities: “An Israeli strike on Iran would be the most dangerous foreign policy issue Obama could face,” the paper declared. Another Republican hawk, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, maintains that additional sanctions alone will not be enough to make the Iranians abandon their nuclear ambitions. William Cohen, who served as defence secretary during the Bill Clinton presidency, says that “there is a countdown taking place” and that Israel “is not going to sit indifferently on the sidelines and watch Iran continue on its way toward becoming a nuclear power.”

Netanyahu has skilfully used the huge general onslaught against Obama by the forces of the US right, with whom the Israeli PM is allied. Together they have managed to deflect the pressure on Israel to freeze colonisation of the occupied territories, and divert attention to the Iranian ‘threat’. At the moment it seems that the US right and their Israeli ally are ahead. George Mitchell’s trip to the Middle East got nowhere, and it is unlikely that Obama will make any progress in talks with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

We in Hands Off the People of Iran have always maintained that threats of further sanctions and war have nothing to do with the alleged development of Iranian nuclear weapons. All the evidence suggests that the Iranian regime’s plan is (eventually) to achieve nuclear weapons capability, rather than actually produce nuclear weapons.

However, we are witnessing a conflict between two alternative US strategies regarding Iran’s future role in the region. During his election campaign Obama seemed prepared for some accommodation, allowing the Islamic regime limited regional influence in exchange for better cooperation with the US. But the US right and Israel preferred to continue the Bush policy of no accommodation, tighter sanctions, regime change from the outside and the threat of military action. The American promise to take a firmer line against the Iranian nuclear plan was supposed to convince Jerusalem to get on board the initiative, yet less than a year into the Obama presidency, pressure from Israel and the US right – at a time of political uncertainty in Iran, combined with Ahmadinejad’s holocaust denial – has ensured there is no progress in this area. The threat of an Israeli military strike against Iran, as well as the possibility of new sanctions, is today as serious as ever before.

Whichever way one looks at the problem, the issues of Palestine and Iran cannot be separated. Yet an oppressive regime in Iran cannot be a genuine ally of the Palestinians; and the liberation of the Iranian people cannot be achieved while the region continues to suffer war, occupation and repression.

On September 18, prompted by the left, some demonstrators in Tehran had the right slogans: “Whether in Gaza or in Iran, stop killing people; Iran has become like Palestine.” The dominance of this slogan in the Tehran demonstration showed the presence and effective role of the left. The demonstration was also unique in a number of other ways. As many commentators have said, it marked a new phase in the continuing struggle between the government and the Iranian people. The massive turnout almost two months after the protests of June and July prove the vulnerability of the unpopular president and government.

New phase

The composition of the protest differed from earlier demonstrations, in that protesters in Tehran and in other major cities were almost uniquely from the poorer districts. The middle classes only came out mid-afternoon, when reports of the size of the demonstrations assured them of safety. It was the first real nationwide protest – tens of thousands came out in Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashad, Tabriz, Rasht, etc. Older women were present in large numbers, probably for the first time since the recent wave of demonstrations started. According to many accounts, Iranians had left their homes in the morning of September 18 fearful that they would be in a small protest surrounded by vicious bassij militia. Only when they reached the agreed assembly places did they become aware of how large the protests were.

Many recount with joy the fleeing of the state’s ‘Hezbollahis’ and their oversized speakers, once they realised how big the opposition protests were going to be. In many of the films on the internet, the faint voices of pro-government demonstrators are being drowned out by slogans from the much larger and more militant opposition. Before the demonstration, it had become clear that Ahmadinejad and his government favoured using the full might of the state to frighten the population. However, the supreme leader and his allies in the conservative faction of the regime, increasingly worried that further repression might challenge the very existence of the Islamic regime, tried to portray the Qods demonstration as a day of ‘national unity’. In the end, of course, the day exposed the deep divisions in Iranian society for all to see.

Although tear gas was used and a number of people were arrested, the level of force use against the demonstrators was less than on previous demonstrations and certainly less than threatened. It will be interesting to see how the protesters will react to this clear retreat of the supreme leader.

Another important factor regarding the September 18 protest was the continuation of the protests at an important football match in the evening. The spectators’ anti-government slogans could be heard for miles around the stadium, but the national radio and television company was forced to abandon live coverage of this rather crucial game between Estghlal and Steel Azin, blaming faulty cameras in the stadium! Foolishly the match was broadcast live on radio, so very few people in Iran are in any doubt about the nature of the state broadcasting authority’s ‘technical’ difficulties. In another victory for the demonstrators on the same day, Ahmadinejad was forced to cut short an interview on national TV, as shouts of “Death to the dictator” could clearly be heard during the broadcast.

No doubt the events that day will shape the coming weeks and months. Schools and universities are opening this week, although many campuses will remain shut until November. The experiences of the demonstration and the football match clearly show that, as soon as a crowd gathers, political opposition to the regime will be voiced. On the other hand, short of calling for a curfew and direct military rule, how can the government avoid public gatherings? And, if it does go towards a curfew, how will reformist opponents within its own ranks react? Are they going to ban football matches? Will they close down universities and high schools?

In a clear sign of retreat, Khamenei’s speech at the end of Ramadan continued a theme taken up earlier in September, in an attempt to pacify sections of the opposition. Khamenei had earlier rejected the idea that foreign powers were involved in the country’s post-election demonstrations: “I do not accuse leaders of the recent events of being stooges of aliens, including the US and Britain, since it was not proved for me. We should not proceed in dealing with those behind the protests on the basis of rumours and guesswork.”1 On September 20, with ‘reformist’ ex-president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani standing a couple of metres from him, he warned government supporters against accusing opposition members of wrongdoing without proof: “While a suspect’s own confession was admissible, his testimony or accusations could not be used to implicate others.”2 A clear dismissal of the show trials which have dominated the government’s agenda in the last few weeks, where ‘reformist’ prisoners accused Rafsanjani and fellow reformists Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Moussavi of collaborating with foreign enemies.

Khamenei’s speech has pacified leaders of the ‘reformist’ movement, as shown by Rafsanjani’s conciliatory tone in a speech to the council of experts on September 22.3 But it is clearly too little too late as far as the protesters are concerned.

In another development, ayatollah Hosein-Ali Montazeri (once the designated successor to Iran’s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini), has replied to a letter from Moussavi, who was seeking guidance, in this way on September 22: “The path to reforming the current system is a very difficult one: the entire regime has lost credibility … A government that was supposed to be the pride of Shias throughout the world has turned the youth and the masses in our country against Islam and religion.”4

The September 18 protests came after three weeks of intensified workers’ protests. In Pars Wagon (train carriage makers), workers angry at non-payment of wages smashed tables and chairs in the canteen. In the Iran Khodro car plant, workers commemorated the death of a fellow worker who collapsed after working three successive shifts. Similar workers’ protests took place in Arj (manufacturer of electrical household goods), Arak Aluminium and many other workplaces. Although most of these protests started off in support of economic demands and against closures, whenever the security forces appeared this prompted the use of the now familiar slogan of “Death to the dictator” – an echo of “Death to the shah”, which dominated the workers’ protests of 1978-79.

Workers in Iran need our support and solidarity – against both imperialist threats and the repressive religious state.

Communist University 2009, the CPGB’s annual week-long school, was the most successful ever in terms of attendance and quality of debate. That was the virtually unanimous opinion of all CU veterans.

Of course, we cannot match the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism event when it comes to numbers – of either sessions or comrades attending – but, as we never cease to point out, Communist University is something qualitatively different. Whereas the SWP fears genuine debate between Marxists, and never invites other revolutionary trends to hammer out their differences or permits anything more than three-minute soundbites from the floor, the CPGB consciously seeks out areas of controversy. Not for its own sake, of course, but precisely in order to clarify what divides us in order to strive for the truth.

This year’s CU, held in Brockley, south London, featured 22 stimulating sessions attended by something approaching 200 comrades overall. While many of those came to just a few meetings, there was a hard core of around 40 who were there throughout – the overnight accommodation at the venue was oversubscribed, with comrades having to improvise in shared rooms. Attendance at the sessions never dropped below 35, while more than 50 came to some of the weekend meetings.

Sessions

What of the content? While we were pleased to welcome back CU regulars who are renowned in their own field – not least Critique editor Hillel Ticktin, Russian Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky and the comrades from the Radical Anthropology Group – the presence throughout the week of Lars T Lih, author of Lenin rediscovered, undoubtedly gave this year’s school something new and original in terms of the historical knowledge that we need.

Were the German Social Democratic Party and the Russian Bolshevik Party completely different animals? Did Vladimir Lenin discover long-held differences with SPD leader Karl Kautsky after the latter’s betrayal in 1914? Did Lenin discard his entire previous strategy in April 1917 and finally become a fully-fledged revolutionary communist? The answers to those questions are no, no and no again, according to comrade Lih’s painstaking research. In fact what stands out is continuity in relation to all of them.

Why is this important? Because the economistic left, having mythologised a non-existent break in 1917, has in the process moved away from a fully Marxist approach. An approach which puts the fight for democracy – in our own movement as well as in relation to society as a whole – at the very centre of our work. We need not only a mass democratic party like Kautsky’s SPD, but a strategy for revolution based on the direct rule of the majority, not the dictatorship of a minority elite ruling in the masses’ name.

That is why comrade Lih’s three talks – on Lenin’s relationship with Kautsky, their strategy for revolution, and the Bolsheviks’ 1917 “wager”, or gamble, on revolution in Russia as a spark for workers’ power in the west – were so invaluable, as were his interventions during other sessions.

Comrade Ticktin’s three openings on the economic crisis – the underlying theory, the particularities of the current crisis, and the prospects for capitalism and class struggle – were also insightful, while comrade Kagarlitsky dealt with the crisis as it affected Russia.

The particular contribution to the workers’ movement of the Radical Anthropology Group was once again highlighted – not least that of their three main theorists and CU speakers, Chris Knight, Camilla Power and Lionel Sims. Comrade Knight – recently sacked by the University of East London for organising the Alternative G20 Summit in April – looked at the theory of primitive communism and its implications for 21st century class struggle, while comrade Power focussed on the not insignificant aspect of human evolution that is religion. SWP member Lionel Sims showed once more how the archaeologists have got it wrong – this time in relation to the prehistoric Avebury monuments. Comrade Sims’ theory explains the significance of Avebury and Stonehenge in relation to the counterrevolution ushered in by the beginnings of class society.

For the second year running, CU was pleased to welcome comrades active in France’s New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA). Jean-Michel Edwin described how the NPA is developing and talked about both the potential and the dangers. Continuing the internationalist theme, CPGB member and chair of Hands Off the People of Iran Yassamine Mather gave a detailed analysis of the Islamic Republic and the Iranian mass movement.

Other CPGB speakers were Jack Conrad, Mike Macnair, Mark Fischer and James Turley. Comrade Conrad, author of the Marxist study of religion, Fantastic reality, looked at the historical context and significance of the Dead Sea scrolls. In an earlier talk he spoke about the origins 30 years ago of what is now the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB. He outlined the centrality of the communist programme and the progress made in redrafting the CPGB Draft programme.

Comrade Macnair introduced a topic that has been the cause of controversy within the CPGB: ‘The Labour Party – still a bourgeois workers’ party?’ He answers that question firmly in the affirmative and spoke very much along the lines of his important Weekly Worker article on the question (‘Making and unmaking Labour’, July 30). Strangely, however, there was little by way of controversy in the ensuing debate, even though the analysis of Labour as a bourgeois workers’ party was central in our decision to urge a Labour vote in the June 4 European Union elections – a decision that was met with strong opposition within our ranks.

The debate on the British National Party and the left’s response was also largely uncontroversial, although this too has seen disagreements in the CPGB, particularly in relation to the nature of the BNP – is it fascist or not? But comrade Turley chose not to focus particularly on that aspect in his opening – although it has to be said that, irrespective of this theoretical question, we are in any case solidly united around the kind of response that is needed and in our opposition to the no-platforming, ‘Smash the Nazis’ approach of most of the left, whether or not it merges with popular frontism.

Comrade Fischer, along with former National Union of Mineworkers militant and author David Douglass, recalled the miners’ Great Strike of a quarter of a century ago – an episode replete with lessons for today, not least when it comes to the absence of a single revolutionary party of the working class.

A lesson, it has to be said, that has not been learnt by Stuart King of Permanent Revolution. Invited to speak ‘On unity’, comrade King expressed some surprise when CPGB comrades criticised his failure to mention the unity that really matters – organisational unity for the class in precisely such a single party. Comrade King viewed this as beyond his remit – common, non-sectarian work in, for example, single-issue campaigns was the key for him.

Other sessions were introduced by Sandy McBurney, former member of the Scottish Socialist Party, who recalled how the potential unity of our class across Britain was deliberately sabotaged by the SSP – its leaders seemingly prefer the cross-class unity of Scots in the separatist fight for independence; and by Israeli anti-Zionist Moshé Machover, who looked at the role and potential of the Hebrew working class.

The remaining two sessions featured debates from the platform. The first was a rather confused affair, with comrades Kagarlitsky, Ticktin and Macnair addressing the question of Asiatic social formations particularly in relation to Russia. There seemed to be some misunderstanding as to what the differences actually were, making this perhaps the least satisfactory session of all, although it was certainly not without interest.

By contrast, the closing roundtable between comrades Ticktin, Knight, Machover and Ben Lewis of the CPGB was controversial and very pertinent: ‘Capitalism’s crisis: how should we organise?’ While all four comrades are agreed on the need for a Marxist party, they have very different views on how it can be won and what we ought to do in the meantime. See here for the comrades’ speeches.

Confident

One of the characteristics of an educational event like CU is, of course, the unevenness of those attending in terms of political experience and theoretical understanding. The fact that we aim for the very highest standards of debate means that the more inexperienced, often younger, comrades do not follow everything that is being argued in the main sessions. Many do not feel confident enough to contribute their own point of view or even ask a question.

That is why there were additional informal lunchtime sessions – held in the large, pleasant garden outside the conference room – where Jack Conrad led discussion on questions that arose not only out of the main meetings, but also out of comrades’ own experiences.

During the course of the week the basics of Marxism are touched upon during these lunchtime gatherings, but there is no doubt that the bourgeois education system does not equip students with any real means of understanding the workings of society. For example, most A-level history courses do not go back before the 19th century, so how can new comrades be expected to know anything at all about feudalism or the Asiatic mode of production?

Clearly we have a job to do in organising ongoing, year-round education for those new to communist politics – in parallel to the approach that aims to enrich our theoretical understanding to the highest level possible.

Not all the ‘fringe’ meetings planned for the evening actually took place, although the one I held – on the role of the Weekly Worker and how we should approach the duty to write for it – was well attended. However, just as important as all the organised sessions, formal and informal, was the social aspect of the week.

We organised our own catering and our own bar, so many comrades stayed at the venue to socialise, watch a film or just chat. And it goes without saying that the debates begun during the day often raged on into the evening and even the early hours. The use of the garden on a balmy August evening was very much appreciated.

Comradeship

It was also used, weather permitting, for the serving of lunch and afternoon tea. Which leads me to a key aspect of CU – the comradeship and cohesion that develops from organising, working and cooperating around a common project.

CPGB comrades each took a turn at providing lunch and supper, and most of the food served, while hardly cordon bleu, was well presented and appetising. And at £2 a meal it was certainly good value. (Come to think of it, where else could you get a full week’s conference, including accommodation, for just £160?)

While the big attendance meant that there were more comrades to share the work, in my opinion in the future we should ask non-CPGB comrades to help out if they wish. Collective self-catering should not, and generally was not, regarded as just a chore, but an integral part of uniting our ranks – politically, socially and organisationally. In that sense, CU can be viewed, in its own small way, as an example of the way common ‘work’ and ‘play’ will be reconciled in the kind of society we are aiming for.

Many of the comrades belonging to other groups and to none appreciated the spirit engendered. In this context particular mention to the two members of the International Bolshevik Tendency must be made. While they strongly disagreed with many aspects of CPGB politics, and with many of the conclusions reached by comrade Lih, for example, the fact that they stayed for several days and contributed to every session meant that after a while what they said went beyond the dogma that we have come to expect from the IBT.

The two comrades ended up playing a more than worthwhile role – Alan Davies even chaired one of the sessions for us! It goes without saying that the IBT, as well as other groups that attended, were able to have a stall in the conference hall and distribute their material freely.

In addition to the organisations already mentioned, there were comrades in attendance from the Labour Party, SWP, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Revolutionary History, Revolutionary Democratic Group and I am sure others too.

Communist University is more and more an event not to be missed. The question is, for how much longer will the excellent Goldsmiths College venue be large enough?

Hopi Emergency Meeting
What lies behind the crisis in Iran?With Yassamine Mather and Moshe Machover. Followed by a fundraising social.

20 June 2009, 2pm
Caxton House,129 St. John’s Way London, N19 3RQ

Iranian society is convulsed by a political crisis on a scale not seen for 30 years. Masses of Iranian people have taken to the streets since the results of the rigged elections. Their outrage is justified. The levels of blatant vote-rigging on show was crazy even by the standards of Iran’s Islamic Republic regime. The final result underlined that the whole process was compromised from top to bottom:

Ahmadinejad was declared winner by the official media even before some polling stations had closed

The percentage of votes for each candidate were clearly choreographed – throughout results night, none of the candidates’ vote varied by more than three percent

Hundreds of candidates were barred from standing in the first place

The main ‘reformist’ candidate Mir-Hossain Moussavi immediately declared the elections a “charade” and claimed Iran was moving towards tyranny. Thousands of protesters (not all of them backers of Moussavi) poured onto the streets and confrontations between the people and the state’s armed forces have escalated by the hour. Millions of people are on the street. The first demonstrator has been killed.

Iranian society remains on a knife-edge. Hopi supporters are in daily contact with Iran and are pushing for maximum solidarity from the workers’ movement here to progressive forces in that country. We are determined that the upsurge against theocratic rule is not derailed by demoguoges and sell-out merchants from within the regime itself. Come along to hear more about what is going on.

August 8-15, South London. Book Now!

Global economic crisis and Marx back in the mainstream press. Huge nationalisations and bailouts for the financial system. Millions in Europe and the US face layoffs, repossessions and poverty. Countries like Pakistan face total societal breakdown. Whatever the immediate dynamics of the global economic crisis, the type of capitalism we will face when the dust settles will be very different. Revolutionaries need to both think afresh as well as rediscover the healthy traditions of our movement. That’s what Communist University 2009 is all about – big answers for the big questions. Confirmed speakers thus far include:

Lars T Lih – Author of the excellent Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be done? in context

Hillel Ticktin – Editor of Critique

Boris Kargalitsky – Russian Marxist, author of Empire of the periphery: Russia and the world system